A service for distributing a high image quality video or a high sound quality audio via the internet includes, for example, IPTV (Internet Protocol TeleVision) and other services. According to the IPTV, a degradation in quality of the video or audio at a reception terminal is expected because of a loss of transferred packets or the like. A video quality estimation apparatus is proposed for estimating the quality of the video to be distributed in a case where the degradation in quality of the reception video and the reception audio at the reception terminal is expected.
A video quality estimation apparatus receives and decodes a video signal which is converted and sent into a packet string, decides a predetermined parameter as an intermediate parameter at least on the basis of packet loss information before the decoding of the video signal, analyzes the decoded video signal to determine a degradation type of the video signal, and estimates a video quality of the video signal after the decoding on the basis of the intermediate parameter and the degradation type. For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-19802 discloses an estimation of a subjective quality of a video signal by extracting a media characteristic amount of a decoded video signal. Also, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-43642 discloses an evaluation by extracting a characteristic amount of a picture using decoded data. Also, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-33722 discloses a determination on a degradation state by creating reference data as preliminary data on a transmission side and using the reference data without using decoded data, which is not NR (Newton-Raphson) method not using an original image or information thereof. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2002-325254 a determination on how many packets are lost with respect to one picture of decoded video while the decoding is a precondition.